WOW.

Dijini was watching TV.

"Randy, you seen these weather reports lately?"

"Yeah. It's getting worse."

On the television screen, a local weathercaster was pointing to a northern frontal line stretching from Northern California to North Dakota.

"And this cold front is accompanied by a B19 Green Wave. So, all you folks in Salt Lake City should prepare for the giant slugs and should get those muzzles out before your dogs start talking. Further South, the high pressure, shimmering translucence that has been holding so long over New Mexico seems to be slowly moving East. I don't know if anybody's left alive down there or not, but they should be back by mid-week healthier than ever and of course, big and fruity smelling."

Dijini tightened the straps holding the Lazyboy to the floor.

"I told Fowler he shouldn't mess with that sonoluminescence crap anymore. The guy won't listen."

"The what?"

"Sonoluminescence. He hooks these high frequency sound generators to a beaker of liquid in his room and crushes these little gas bubbles until they create light... and shift reality a little."

Randy turned to look out the window... the window that was now gone. The one that had moved up the wall and into the attic.

"I dunno. He ain't a bad roomate. Buys more of the beer than we do."

"Yeah. He's okay. But when I wake up with a propeller coming out of my ass or something, he and I are gonna have a talk!"

Note: The characters are in their mid 20s.
Gary enters the room. John is watching Vid.
"Hey John look what I buy!"
"What's that?"
"Makes music"
"Music? You mean like Vid unit?"
"No. You make the music"
"You? Alone?"
"Yes"
"Umm...How?"
"You push the white and black things...I think"
"You dont know how to do it?!?"
Pause
"No. But it has a...Don't know how they call it...paper..."
"Let me see"
John opens the box:
"See... Paper"
"That's a book!"
"Book?"
"You have to read it"
"Read it? All of it"
"Afraid so"
"You know how?"
"To read?...No. My uncle does"
"Your uncle! Lets go see him!"
"Can't. Dont know where he is"
"Oh. Sorry"
"No...Is not like that...He hides from them...I hope..."

I've got a blank page and a pen, let's get the creative juices flowing.

What will I write about, there's a world of possibilities, the potential of this page is limitless. I can right anything I want, and who knows, it could be a work of art. Or it could be garbage.

Hmm, maybe I'll leave all this potential for another day, yeah, that's what I'll. Keep this page for tomorrow and write a masterpeice on it, but for now I'll go eat a sandwich.

Glory!

Glory!

Ishka poked her nose out of her mother's pouch for the second time in as many days. That squat, boggle-eyed thing across the room is still there. Her father.

Ishka knows his looks are almost indistinguishable from her mother's, but the smell is not quite right. It's going to take some time to get used to him.

Ishka is at that stage of her life where curiosity compells her to explore the world outside mother's pouch, but her budding consciousness isn't sure she's really ready.

Ok, one more peek. What is that! Father has a pouch, and peeking out of it, back at me? I have a brother? Oh, no, this is just too much.

The wind comes through Jeremy's heart with wings of cold steel. His large rubber boots seeming to be moving on their own bones, and only the distant pain of muffled footsteps telling his time. White is the noise of light - white is sight.

Raising his large head looking up the covered hillside at the weighted tree smoothly coated in sleeves of ice. They had not come last evening as they had promised, and this had become the reason for another wager.

He had lost. As he had planned.

what do you see in a mirror?

"What if . . ." began Mikah, as she held the blue and white rice bowl in her hand and tapped the rim with her chopsticks.

Nate frowned at her, but nodded, visible over the top of the box of Chinese take-out. The smell of hot pepper and sesame oil was making him hungry.

"We've got stacks of dishes in the kitchen, and so does everyone else. Lots of them. There are even more piled up in shops, and then there are paper plates." She opened random boxes, looking for the one with the steamed rice.

Nate made his "I'm listening" noise, and set down the empty box.

"It seems like such a waste."

"What?" he asked, as he stripped the paper off another pair of chopsticks.

"All those dishes. What if we had one bowl each?"

"Like those monks?" asked Nate.

"Yeah. You would carry it all the time." She dumped the box of rice into her bowl, and poked at the square rice-lump until it broke into chunks. "When you go somewhere to eat, they put food in your bowl, and afterwards you wash it, and you are ready for the next meal."

"What if you want to eat pizza, and all you have is a little round soup bowl?" he asked.

"Pizza is finger food," she explained. "It doesn't count."

"Beer?"

"You can drink beer out of a bowl."

"Yeah, I suppose. What about storing leftovers?"

Mikah looked out the window. "You don't have leftovers. There aren't a fixed number of people at a meal. You just invite in more people until all the food is eaten." She smiled, imagining the happy community where meals were shared, instead of being plastic wrapped and sealed in the dark interior of a refrigerator.

"Well," said Nate thoughtfully, "that's fine, until your weird aunt makes some sort of anchovy/brussle-sprout/tofu surprise casserole. What if no one wants to eat it?"

There is no sig.

Glory!

Hallelujah!

I wanted to test the accuracy of political polling in the United States, so I decided to duplicate the most recent CNN/TIMES poll regarding President Bush's approval ratings.

I polled 1008 voting age Americans. 53% said they still approved of the way President Bush was doing his job, but 48% say the Bush administration either misinterptreted WMD data prior to the Iraq war or fabricated it. Only 41% of those polled would presently choose any of the announced Democratic Presidential candidates over Bush. Interestingly, 12% say they would vote for the Loch Ness Monster if he were running against Bush, while only 2% noted that this would be impossible because the Constitution requires that the US President be born in the United States and that the Loch Ness Monster, if there is one, was born in Scottland or Canada or somewhere.

Less than 1% of those polled were upset and said that the pollster "was constantly staring at my boobs". Also less than 1% were those who agreed to have dinner with me provided I chose "someplace nice". Fully 3% of those polled told me to go fuck myself. The poll configuration prohibits us from determining with statistical signifigance whether they meant that literally.

Interestingly, 2% of those polled asked if the pollster would "like pie with that" and indicated that I should pay "$7.91 at the first window".

"You ever wonder what it would be like if the Rapture happened and all the Fundies went bye-bye?" Steve asked, glaring at the little green car in front of us with the LOGOS license plate and "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" bumper sticker.

He always asks me stuff like this when I'm driving. It's bad enough that I have to deal with psychotic Dallas drivers in monster pickups who think I'm insulting their penis size if I get a car length ahead of them. I really didn't want to dodge Ford F-350s and debate the ramifications of Christian mythology at the same time.

"Dunno," I muttered, flipping off a be-mulleted moron in a banged-up red Grand Am. "Isn't the Antichrist supposed to show up after that?"

"Yeah, but what if it didn't happen? What if all the devout types got sucked up into heaven," he wiggled his fingers towards the car roof, "and once they were gone, there wasn't enough belief to power the rest of the things predicted in Revelations?"

"The Republicans would be pissed," I said. "They'd lose a huge chunk of their voting base right there."

"Yeah, that would be good, wouldn't it?" he said dreamily. "The abstinence movement would crash and burn."

I thought about it. "Roe V. Wade wouldn't be constantly challenged anymore," I offered.

"Stem cell research would be legalized."

"So would gay marriage."

"It could be the dawn of a whole new renaissance."

I took my eyes off the road just long enough to look at him. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?"

"I think so, Brain," he said in the world's worst quasi-English accent. "But where are you going to get cables big enough to jump-start the Rapture?"

"Good question, Pinky. Good question."

--
Acting is for those who need to have people pay close attention to them.
I write, which means I have a large ego best viewed from a distance.

Glory!

Praise it (writing)!

Praise it!

Thank yew, thank yew, I'll be here all week!

--
Acting is for those who need to have people pay close attention to them.
I write, which means I have a large ego best viewed from a distance.

1% willing to date ya Trogdor? That's 10 people! You go, Troggie.

Jack paused before unlocking the front door. Who knew what might be lurking out there?

He shrugged his shoulders carefully, measuring the weight of the pair of pistols and shoulder holster rig. The leather shifted slightly, and settled into place over his charcoal-gray turtleneck sweater.

A twitch of his right foot confirmed that the steel-toed leather boot was snuggly laced, and pressed the hilt of the throwing knife against his calf. He brushed his hand down the seam of his black denim jeans to confirm that said knife was still invisble.

Jack brushed the trench coat back and dragged his fingertips across his left pocket, reminding himself about the cellular phone, $1.87 in pocket change, and the sterile gauze mask in a sealed packet. (the house keys and the condoms were in the right-side pocket.)

He glanced around the kitchen, to insure that no critical bit of gear was missing. A roll of black electrical tape joined a Leatherman tool in one his coat pockets.

He smiled with satisfaction, and slid the door open. With a smooth and practiced stride, he stepped out into the hallway without anything rattling. The door closed behind him, and he heard the door latch.

"D*mn it! I forgot my wallet again!"

-------------------
There is no sig.

~~~ 1% willing to date ya Trogdor? That's 10 people! ~~~

*less than* 1%!

Actually it was just one girl, and the girl part remains unconfirmed. Stood me up. Such is the life of an important pollster.

"God damn, it's like they wanna burn down the fucking forest, but don't realize it yet. Something about cause and effect that haven't quite reached their cognitive centers yet," I said, shaking my head in misanthropic disbelief.

"What are you babbling about?" Spence asked knowing something-acerbic-this-way-comes.

"The fuck-knuckles in the camp down the way are using whole trees for firewood. They've got about ten feet long stuck into the maw of the firepit, with another draped over it. I saw one of them ripping branches off a nearby tree. Probably hoping the smoke would drive away the mosquitos. Stop looking at me like that."

Either he didn't believe me or there was a bug on my nose. Again. "Come on...," I said gesturing for him to follow.

--Never underestimate the power of uneducated people in large groups.

"Nope..." Ethan pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose.

Then 'she' tilted 'her' head. "Excuse me?"

She had that familiar look about her. No correspondance would be entered into. Cheques would not be honoured. But the defence had requested bail...

"I said, no." Then with force. "I, did, not."

Lines of battle had been drawn now. No point standing around in no-man's-land. Push forward. Defeat is not an option. Soldier.

"I'm tired of you asking if I made my bed. I make it every morning, and you always ask... always."

The 'Queen of the Harpies' began her ascent into a rage. Like a flower she began to unfold. It started with the eyes - flickering. It spread to the brow - furrowing. It centred on the nostrils - flaring.

And Ethan was gone.

---
Made from an extremely authentic tough shiny blue nylon, every detail is matched to the original spec. The real mouton sheepskin collar is just sumptuous, and their reproduction of the Crown zipper is stunning.

Glory!

Can I get an Amen?

Can I get an Amen?